But I’ve resisted the iPhone for all the reasons Grant articulated. My boyfriend was about to buy me one for my birthday, and I actually turned it down. I just can’t be That Girl. It’s an amazing device, but it’s hard to hide and when I see that guy on the plane, I think, “how obnoxious.” It’s like, I want it for myself, just privately, but I don’t want it out in the world where everyone can see it.

Plus, my doubts about early adoption are very real. Only one color and size. Really freaking expensive. Bugs and updates. I sat at a Genius Bar for an hour last week, and watched iPhone after iPhone get diagnosed.

I know it’s great, and I have this sense of inevitability (I will have one someday, like if and when Verizon picks it up) but just – not – yet.

Lynne Kiesling I pride myself on being a version 2.0 adopter, an early-but-not-bleeding edge adopter. I’m also a happy Mac user. Why, therefore, have I (of all people!) not bought an iPhone? Grant McCracken’s recent musings on his newly-acquired iPhone…

I was at the gas station today filling up the Prius. The fellow at the pump in front of me went into the convenience store and upon returning to his car, the stranger passed me and said “So, What kind of mileage do you get?” Without missing a beat, I looked him in the eye and said “I don’t know.” He was startled and visibly unsettled by the response (and my eyeballing him as directly as Dirty Harry would confront a perp) because he clearly expected something different — here’s a fellow driving a Prius who isn’t holier than thou, who isn’t proselytizing for Mr. Toyotan and who doesn’t know what his mileage is? WTF is this guy about? Then, a brief flash of horror, fear and revulsion crossed his brow.

You could see expressed in his face quite clearly what he was thinking — this guy IS the bolt gun murderer depicted in the movie “No Country for Old Men.”

This is the ‘I’m special because, behold, I am not special’ approach, but it includes a transgressive third actor – menace – which appears suddenly and unexpectedly from nowhere. So you gotta ask yourself “Do I feel lucky?” Well do ya, punk?

I cannot wait to dump my Palm Treo (my 7th one since August of ’06 because they kept breaking) when my contract expires in 12 days. I have long had a fantasy of taking a sledgehammer to it and then taking a photo of me holding the destroyed Treo and my new iPhone and sending it to the CEO of Sprint and Palm who routinely refused to help me out of my mess over the past year and a half.

But in 12 days, I have to make a decision and while I have been excited about buying my iPhone, I have found myself secretly wanting another alternative so my life isn’t all Appleish! It’s like I am sick of the taste of Apple pie. Everybody is eating Apple pie. pie. pie. pie. Only its white and plastic and beautifully cooked.

There. I said it. I have admitted my heresy that I want another brand. Problem is that unless the Helio checks out amazingly, the iPhone is it because it is so perfect for my needs.

So, I wonder if we aren’t seeing Apple at a crossroads and that Grant’s reluctance comes from buying one more product that is so fantastic he wishes someone else could be so inventive and therefore buy theirs so they don’t look like an Apple pie person? My sense is that they have become obnoxiously successful and that they ARE the model of the ultimate skunk works who is driven by a singular purpose, a singularly focused CEO and a few Goliath sized competitors that make it necessary to be very, very good.

I love the revolutionary nature of Apple. I love their ability to design products for people. But have they become so good at revolution that the Revolution is over? Have they become the Goliath of the Idea and I want someone else to come and slay them? Damn the iPod. It made Apple pie universally American.